Kiss of Hot Sun (3 page)

“It made little difference, though. We were faithful for oh—so long. Then poor Vittorio died. His arteries...”

“I’m sorry,” I muttered, embarrassed.

“Don’t be, my dear. If your own life holds as much happiness as mine has done, you will be very content.”

She sighed again, enjoying her memories.

“I gave up the stage when I lost my Vittorio, and came to live in Sicily permanently. My heart was there, you see. Besides, I was never cut out for
elderly
parts.” She spoke the word like it was sour on the tongue.

I tried to get an idea of the job I was expected to do.

“Oh, just to give me a hand in running the villa. You will have to learn my little peculiarities and act accordingly.”

“How many guests do you have?” I asked.

“Never many at one time. You see, I run the
Stella d’Oro
for pleasure rather than for money. It would seem such an empty house with just myself. I like to have people around me.” She added quickly, “But I am very choosy. I only take those who have been personally recommended.”

I got the feeling she wasn’t terribly keen to discuss the management of her guest house. Maybe it was altogether too workaday a subject. Instead, I asked her to tell me about Sicily, and that touched the button. We were in fact so preoccupied, Adeline holding forth and I an eager listener, that we almost missed the approach from the air. I was just in time to pick out the great bulk of Mount Etna before we landed at Catania.

The drive to the
Villa Stella d’Oro
was about forty miles, I gathered. Miss Harcourt had phoned ahead from Rome, instructing one of her staff to meet us with the car. But it had not turned up. She was just beginning to tut impatiently when a cheerful voice hit us from behind.

“Hi there, Adeline!”

We both wheeled round. Grinning down at us was an incredibly good-looking man. He was casually dressed in a blue striped sweat shirt and white cotton slacks. His lean face was tanned whole shades deeper than mere bronze.

“Giles darling!” Adeline cried. “How delightful. But why are
you
here?”

“For the pleasure of driving you home,” he said gallantly. “What else?” But he was taking a good slow look at me as he spoke.

Adeline Harcourt hadn’t missed a thing. “This is Kerry Lyndon, and she has come here to do a job.” She winked at me. “I stress this fact, my dear, to disabuse Giles right from the outset.”

“Nobody,” he said, shaking his head solemnly, “but
nobody
comes to Sicily to work.”

“Now Giles, be quiet,” said Adeline. “Kerry, this is Giles Yorke. A dear friend of mine and a clever artist when he chooses to exert himself. But he is also rather a naughty boy.”

Giles led the way over to his car, a snazzy red sports job, wide open to the evening sun. He signalled the hovering porter to pile our luggage in the back.

“In with you, girls.” Giles opened the passenger door for us. But as Adeline started to climb in, he put a hand on her arm. “Let Kerry get squashed in the middle. You’ll be more comfortable on the outside.”

“I shall be more comfortable, young man,” said Adeline severely, “sitting next to you. This way I can be confident you will pay some attention to your driving.”

We left the airport just like we were taking off, and were soon on a coastal road. The scenery was fantastic, but with the flow of chat I didn’t get a chance to look around much. To our right was vivid blue sea; to our left, the foothills of Etna. At breakneck speed we flashed through a landscape of black rock, verdant lemon groves, and a mesmerising carpet of brilliant flowers.

“And what,” yelled Giles Yorke, “is Kerry in the scheme of things?”

“She is going to help me run the
Stella d’Oro.
To relieve me of some of the burden.”

“But I mean, what about...?”

Adeline cut in with snappy decision. “I don’t know what you mean, Giles. I’ve just told you, Kerry has come to help me. And that’s all there is to it.”

I glanced past her profile and caught Giles’ puzzled frown. Then Adeline shifted in her seat, and cut off my view.

There was a tangible spikiness in the atmosphere. I couldn’t imagine what it was all about, but I was uncomfortably aware that in some way it concerned me.

In an effort to take the strain off, I asked Giles about his painting.

“What sort of things do you do?”

“Oh, this and that,” he said carelessly. “Mostly pot-boiling views of the bay to flog to tourists. I have to keep that old wolf from knocking at my door.”

Adeline had entirely recovered her good spirits. “As I explained to you, Kerry, he is a fine artist. But Giles is far too frivolous, so be on your guard.”

The road jerked us upwards, flicking to the left and right, circling a giant’s tooth of hard rock that sprouted a curious spiny succulent bush from every smallest crevice. We passed very little other traffic. At one point a flock of hens were sleepily scratching dust in the middle of the road. They scurried from under our wheels with resentful squawks. As we accelerated away again, a snatched glimpse through a gateway showed me a large rambling house. A group of children were sitting in a circle on the grass, singing.

“What’s that? A school?”

“It is the convent of
Santa Teresa,”
Adeline told me. “For orphans. The sisters are wonderful, but there are so many children and not enough money. I do what little I can to help them.”

We hadn’t much further to go. Zooming around a last bend, a blaze of yellow flowers on the bank, we shot through black wrought-iron gates, open to the road. Without pause we raced on, scrunching the immaculate drive of a formal Italian garden.

I saw neat, low-trimmed hedges, exuberant marble statuary, and the dark straight fingers of cypresses. And then we had stopped by some wide, shallow steps. The white walls of the
Villa Stella d’Oro
glowed golden in the setting sun. Canopied balconies and wide, graceful arches made an immediate impression of cool spaciousness.

The silence following the cutting of the motor was broken by excited twitterings. The staff were gathered in true old-time style to greet the return of their mistress. A fat, sweating, prematurely-aged woman and a ravishing black-haired girl of seventeen or so were both delighting in the moment, laughing and crying and wringing their hands in abandoned ecstasy. But the third member of the group did not outwardly share their joy. He was a tall young man; slim, swarthy, with the smug arrogance of a male who knows he is good to look at. Darkly sullen, his eyes were fixed upon me.

Adeline, swinging smoothly out of the car, greeted the women affectionately. The man she acknowledged with caution, and what looked like doubt at the back of her eyes.

She introduced me. They had known of my coming, of course, through her phone call from Rome. I was prepared for a certain degree of unwelcome; I was a stranger, a foreigner, whose job it would be to tell them what to do.

But Maria the fat cook, and Luciana the pretty young housemaid, showed no sign of resentment; only warmingly cheerful smiles.

The man Carlo was quite another matter. I learned that he was Maria’s nephew, waiter and general handyman at the
Stella d’Oro.
He stared at me boldly, sneered, half-turned his back and muttered rudely under his breath. It was a virtuoso display of insolence yet all done with such subtlety that I am sure nobody else even noticed.

If this was a foretaste of what was to come, I could count on trouble with Carlo. Still, I wouldn’t anticipate; I’d settle in and take things as I found them.

* * *

Adeline Harcourt was maddeningly imprecise about my duties. She seemed to treat me more as a guest than as an employee, and I found myself quite unable to pin her down to anything positive.

“Time enough to find you more to do when you are properly settled in,” she said cheerfully, when I pressed her again on the day after my arrival.

“More
to do!” I protested. “So far I’ve had next to nothing.”

But she merely smiled serenely. “Forget your precipitate northern temperament, Kerry darling,” she said, promoting me in her endearment scale. “You must adjust to the Sicilian pace now. Down here we take life much more easily.”

They certainly did! Three servants, Adeline and me, all deployed for the benefit of just two guests, a pair of young honeymooners from Austria. It was a crazy situation.

Adeline, no doubt unwittingly, made things more difficult for me by encouraging Giles to stick around the villa.

And he on his part seemed glad of any excuse to desert his studio.

The trouble was, I liked Giles. In fact, I liked him a lot. He was gay and amusing. He certainly had a carefree attitude to life, but then I’d never believed there was any particular virtue in taking a solemn view. Giles lived the way he wanted, and did nobody any harm that I could see.

His keen interest in me was enormously flattering. If I’d not been scared of getting caught on the rebound after that deathblow from Philip, I might have let Giles know how much I liked him. But as it was, I stayed markedly cool.

I managed to hold him off all the first day. But after lunch on the second, when the staff were off duty and Adeline was taking a siesta upstairs, Giles caught me by the door of the kitchen.

“You keep pacing around like a caged animal, Kerry.”

I pretended not to notice that his face was barely six inches from mine. “Go away. I’ve got work to do...”

“And all the time in the world to do it in.” He jerked his head in a quick grin. “Relax, Kerry. You’re in Sicily now.”

“But I’m supposed to be here to do a job.”

“Stop arguing with your good luck.” He leaned forward suddenly so that his lips were against mine. I felt my resistance dissolving. Was there some magic in the Sicilian air that made me want to let him kiss me?

Whatever it was, I struggled against the impulse, pushing myself back to the wall. But I couldn’t escape him. His arms were tight around me, drawing me towards him again. I could feel the supple warmth of his lean body. His teeth shone white against deep-bronze skin.

“No Giles, don’t,” I said sharply. “Somebody might come.”

He laughed. “Wouldn’t that be just too awful—for someone to catch sight of a pair of lovers kissing, here in Sicily...”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said, struggling out of his arms.

He let me go, just retaining one hand firmly in his own.

“You can’t stop me hoping,” he said lightly.

I couldn’t find it in me to brush Giles off more decisively. Maybe my damaged pride needed the tonic of having a man interested in me.

Together we strolled out to the shady loggia, a green haven of trailing creepers and vines. It was cool and refreshing. Beyond, the heat of afternoon sun shimmered above parching grass.

Giles was very much at home at the
Stella d’Oro.
He wandered back indoors, and emerged a moment later carrying a tray. Just iced water and lemon juice; without any sugar at all it was marvellously tangy.

A little fountain tinkled as a background. We lounged in long cane chairs, sipping the drinks, talking in a desultory way. Giles asked what had brought me to Sicily, and I explained a bit about myself and my job with Monica.

I didn’t say a word about Philip Rainsby.

Giles gave me a slow, appraising survey of a look. “I thought maybe it was a man that brought you belting over here.”

“Of course it’s not a man!” There was acid in my voice.

“I meant,” he remarked mildly, “a man you are running away from. An unhappy memory, maybe?”

“You’re crazy. I needed a job, that’s all.”

“Only, there isn’t much work for you to do?” His eyes narrowed. “It almost makes me wonder if you haven’t got some sort of hold on Adeline.”

“What are you talking about now?”

He shrugged. “Maybe you know something the old girl doesn’t want made public.”

Swift anger rose in me. “Are you suggesting that I’m blackmailing Miss Harcourt?”

I began to get up, but from such a low, reclining position it wasn’t an easy thing to do with dignity. Giles put out a lazy hand and held me back.

“Calm down, Kerry. I was only kidding.”

“Well, I don’t think it was funny, that’s all.”

But I stayed. Giles sipped his drink for a minute. Then, with mock contrition, he raised his eyes to mine. “Am I forgiven?”

I had to grin at him. “I must admit I feel a bit of a fraud, though. We could easily have a lot more people staying here. A fabulous place like this, and bang in the middle of the season...”

“There are some new people coming tomorrow,” he said.

“Oh, really?”

“Yes. A couple from England, I hear. And another chap on his own.”

I felt piqued that Giles should know more than I did about expected guests. He must have seen my annoyance, because he added hastily: “Adeline just happened to mention it.”

“Well, it’s a pity she didn’t happen to mention it to me!” But I felt hurt more than angry. And after all, Giles wasn’t the one to blame. “Oh, never mind...” I stretched back luxuriously in my chair. “It’s too gloriously hot to quarrel about anything.”

He gave me an amused glance, nodding with approval. “Now you’re getting the idea of Sicily,” he said. “The main thing is to relax and stop worrying about things that don’t really matter anyway. Enjoy yourself.”

“I can see it could be a pleasant life,” I admitted.

“Take it from one who knows! And as a first lesson in the art of living, you shall come on a little excursion with me tomorrow.”

Afternoon tea was the social high spot of the day at the
Villa Stella d’Oro.
Adeline made quite a ceremony of it. She presided over the wagon, wielding an exquisite silver teapot and water jug. It gave her an unmatched opportunity to dazzle everyone with her dramatic talents, and I guessed this was the only reason for sticking to so English a habit. All other meals at the villa were strictly Italian-style.

But that afternoon we were a small party, only Giles and I were joining her for tea. The honeymooners were out, apparently forgetting the time. We sat in the salon, long windows thrown wide to the loggia.